Alessandra Galasso

In an age where ideologies and schools of thought have lost the capacity to forge strong cultural models, where national identities are gradually dissolving into a global context, and the distinctive characteristics of individual aesthetic languages faded out some time ago in favour of contamination, it is legitimate to ask whether we can still consider the contemporary period in terms of one single medium - in this case sculpture - within the boundaries of a specific national context. With these questions in mind, Alessandra Galasso explores the roots of contemporary sculpture in its many facets and declinations, traces its origines and presents the most recent work of the Italian artists engaged in this expressive genre. Her analysis commences from a historical perspective, embracing the entire sculpture tradition of the 20th century, and the radical changes that characterised it, then looks to the italian art panorama of the last decade, identifying original visual strategies and new interpretations of our complex reality. The thirty artists presented in Laboratorio italia - young italian sculptors, all share the awareness of combining old identities with new multicultural contexts, the practice of recovering traditional aesthetic canons with the desire to reinvent them from a new angle, and new materials. All the artists blend experimentation and tradition in their own ways, and combine their own personal stories with the Zeitgeist.

This monograph gathers the diverse production of an artist of multiform skills: from the hand-sewn felt puppets (IllegalAliens) to his crochet works, from his big format pen drawings to his visual poetry. These pages contain an interview to the artist edited by Alessandra Galasso, an unpublished short story by Tatiana Carelli inspired by Aldo Lanzini’s works, and a rich iconographic apparatus. Aldo Lanziniwas born in Sondrio (Italy) in 1968. He studied at the Accademia di Brera in Milan and specialized in multimedia with a Master at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. His IllegalAliens have gained great success and have been reviewed on many international art and fashion magazines (Cosmopolitan, Elle, Flash Art, Vogue, Time Out New York) in Italy, France, Holland and United States.

The volume is based on the original project by Keith Haring for the catalogue, which was never produced, of his great solo exhibition in Milan in 1984 at the Galleria Salvatore Ala. The book contains excerpts from Keith Haring Journals, in which he describes his life and work in Milan, an interview with the gallery manager Salvatore Ala, an essay by the curator which analyzes the 1984 exhibition and pinpoints its historical importance for Haring and the city of Milan. At the end of the volume a press review brings back to life the voices of journalists and critics, the atmosphere of the very moment. A large amount of colour and black-and-white pictures accompany the texts, including the photos of the works of art especially created for the exhibition, various historical shots of Haring working in the gallery, pictures from the inauguration portraying Haring and his many guests. Keith Haring is the highest expression of the social and artistic unrest of the eighties called graffiti art. Keith Haring was a real artist, a symbol of the era of comics as well as the cultural influence of the Maya and pre-Colombian populations, of Japanese pictograms and Picasso’s revolutionary artwork. His choice to use sprays, markers and paints instead of traditional instruments and traditional surfaces highlights his radical behaviour, his preference for a newer and independent style. His images are “universal” and have become a landmark in the contemporary iconographic heritage.